22% of Irish people unable to afford a holiday this year

22% of people say they cannot afford to go on holiday, according to a survey from KBC Bank Ireland.

The bank's consumer sentiment survey for July found that spending on holidays only accounted for about 6% of household expenditure in 2018, despite growing by 10.8%.

Despite 22% of Irish consumers saying they are unable to afford to go on holidays this year, 69% plan to take a significant holiday.

9% are not taking a holiday for reasons other than affordability.

Official data indicates that Irish people take on average two holidays per year.

According to Austin Hughes, Chief Economist at KBC Bank Ireland, who carried out the analysis, the survey suggests that those who take holidays take three holidays each on average while more than one in five Irish people don’t take any holiday because of financial constraints.

He found that the results suggest a substantial number of households are still struggling financially in spite of the strong economic upswing of the past five or six years.

Of those Irish consumers taking holidays in 2019, most plan to spend around the same as last year.

Averaged across all consumers, holiday spending is set to be just 0.6% higher than in 2018, according to KBC.